Haunted by Waters
by FraochDubh
Summary: Shepard's new Spectre status puts her on the path to save the galaxy, among other things. Unbeknownst to her, it also puts her on the path to an assassin who is becoming increasingly disturbed by the long-dead emotions seeping into his consciousness. Spans ME1-3. Some liberties taken with canon. Characters & fictional places are property of BioWare.
1. I Have Heard the Call

**A/N:** _I've been writing professionally for a lot of years now, but this is my first foray into fanfiction. I haven't written much fiction at all in recent times, as the boring, paying work has taken over. I wanted to flex my fiction muscles a bit with characters I've really come to love, and tell their story as I've thought it should have gone, and how it went in my head as I filled in the gaps. I hope you like it, though I welcome any feedback you offer. The title comes from the last line of Norman Maclean's semiautobiographical novella, A River Runs Through It._

* * *

Shepard had never heard of Nassana Dantius, so why did she feel dizzy at the sound of her voice when Joker patched her message through to the CIC? The woman sounded haughty and disagreeable - ordinarily the kind of person Shepard had absolutely no time for. Why, then, could the Normandy not seem to reach the Citadel fast enough to bow to her request? Why did Shepard curse the admiral's inspection and Conrad Verner equally for delaying her course to the embassy bar? This woman was no one to Shepard. Nassana's life was wholly unconnected with hers in every imaginable way.

While meeting with Nassana and hearing of her sister's distress, Shepard wrote off the chills that shuddered over her as the asari spoke as a natural reaction to imagining how horrible it must be for a civilian with no training to find herself at the mercy of mercs who only saw her as a means to collecting a ransom. What else could it be? Her heart went out to Nassana. She was clearly spoiled and thought herself privileged enough to ignore the law, but who wouldn't do everything in their power to rescue a sister, especially if that power included an embarrassingly large fortune?

Shaking off the inordinate squeezing going on in her cardiac area, Shepard agreed to the straightforward rescue operation. As she walked away, feeling weighed down and confused, she decided to see if Dr. Chakwas had any good drugs for this kind of thing stashed away somewhere. Clearly, the Saren issue had her more stressed out than she'd realized, if one civilian sob story brought her to the brink of a public breakdown. If Williams, who lacked the tact and gentility of the asari archeologist who rounded out the landing party Shepard had brought to meet with Nassana, failed to mention any outward sign of her commanding officer's distress, it meant that there were no outward signs to notice.

"Good," Shepard thought. Strung-out would not be the best look for the galaxy's newly-minted first human Spectre to present to the Presidium at large.

_Ship Commander's personal log, entry 8_

_We're en route to the Artemis Tau cluster to extract an asari named Dahlia Dantius from a band of mercs who're holding her for still-unknown reasons. If her sister Nassana already sent the ransom as she says, then we have no idea what they want, so we'll just have to be prepared for the worst. _

_I feel it necessary to note here that I'm aware this is out of our way and seems on the surface as if it's not exactly the best use of our time and resources at the moment. We have yet to find the Conduit or even learn what it is or why Saren wants it. I have every confidence that we'll be able to get this over with in short order and get back to the mission, but also that this is something we have to do. No. Something I have to do. It doesn't matter who goes with me, but I have to attend to this one myself. Chakwas says I seem perfectly normal for someone with "Save Galaxy" on her to-do list and told me to lay off the caffeine. _

_I've been asking a lot of people to trust me lately, and most of them have - all except the council. I guess it's my turn to trust the instincts that are screaming at me that this is the right thing to do. Maybe Dahlia Dantius has the Conduit stashed in the bottom of her handbag. _

_Shepard out._

* * *

"This one knows you are no longer in the employ of the Illuminated Primacy, but we hope you will accept a commission for us in your capacity as a freelancer."

"You are aware of my rates. As I am not currently engaged, I have reviewed the material given to me by your intermediary and found the job acceptable. Transfer the credits. It will be done."

The orange glow of the omni-tool winked out abruptly as the assassin ended the transmission. While the finer feelings of those who hired him to be a weapon were not ordinarily foremost in his concern, he usually felt it prudent to exercise politeness, especially when the job came from a hanar. Tonight, however, he was on edge. Usually, he felt - well, he felt nothing. When his body hungered, he fed it without a care for savoring any taste or texture. When his body was tired, he went to the nearest bed and slept. Whether it was in a luxury suite or a vermin-filled cot, he didn't care. Nothing had startled or excited him in years, but tonight, he found himself agitated and unable to account for the source of the disquietude.

With a flick of his wrist, he reopened the omni-tool to book passage to the Citadel. Transport was one area of his life for which luxury was required, but not because he craved comfort. He simply needed to guarantee that the ship taking him to where he needed to go would be swift, reliable, and staffed by personnel who understood that their passengers' business was none of theirs. The next suitable booking was not for several hours, so he made use of the room that had been his home, as much as any of the hundreds like it had been over the years, to meditate in effort to rid himself of the unwelcome and unidentifiable turmoil that writhed about the edges of his consciousness.

Confident that he had secured the room against all intrusion, he shed the black leather clothing that was necessary to protect and conceal him as he went about his daily affairs. It did its duty well, but he felt the need to be free of it, to breathe unrestricted. The sun beating through the room's single, tiny window was just enough to warm the room comfortably without being a distraction. An occasional cloud floated by the pane as he sent his consciousness away from a body covered only in the shadow and iridescence of dappled sunlight pouring over its scales.

_Amonkira, Lord of Hunters, grant that my aim stay true. Rid me of that which would unsteady my hand as I seek to do Your will._


	2. A Weight as Heavy as Frost

"Entering orbit around Sharjila, Commander." Joker's voice broke through Shepard's white-knuckled anxiety with a crackle.

With a shake that she hoped no one noticed, she released her grip on the railing above the galaxy map and said, "Take us in. Garrus, Wrex, you're with me."

Contrary to what she'd promised Dr. Chakwas, Shepard hadn't gotten much rest during the journey. Instead of catching a nap, she'd lain awake, agonizing over every foreseeable detail of the mission. By the time she'd given up on sleep and made her way back to the CIC, she was no better off than when she'd walked away from Nassana's table in the bar. Those few hours had felt like years - years that had aged Shepard, made her weary, and left her wishing she had never heard of Dahlia Dantius.

If she could have taken the whole fleet with her, she would have, and maybe then she'd have felt less like a naked offering to the Fates as she fastened her armor. Her new krogan and turian allies would be the ones to accompany her. She knew that in Wrex, she'd have a tank of a fighter who would do his job without any need to discuss his feelings about it afterward. She had enough feelings to deal with as it was. In Garrus, well, he carried a sniper rifle and knew how to use it. For reasons beyond her comprehension, she knew she needed a sniper for this one.

* * *

Meditation had brought him no peace. The gods had given him no answer. Though he could never trust a ship full of strangers with his sleeping body, he closed his eyes to continue his efforts to understand the omens weighing upon him. If his mind remained clouded, he would have to rely on his body alone to do its job. This was not a new procedure. His body was tempered with enough training and experience to do its job with little conscious thought involved. What was new was the sensation that it actually mattered if he failed.

Despite the fact that he had deliberately estranged himself from anyone who would care, he was, for once, deeply troubled by the notion that he might not live to see the other side of his latest assignment. He had nothing to live for, and the thought that life could have events of importance yet in store for him was the most troubling concept of them all. Nearly four decades of existence had taught him that the odds of such events resulting in less than profound disaster were miniscule.

_Kalahira, Mistress of inscrutable depths, if it is the waves of Your domain that crash within me, let them close over me swiftly. _

* * *

**A/N:**_ Chapter titles come from Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood." Find it at . _


	3. Our Mortal Nature Did Tremble

"I am going to kill Nassana Dantius."

"So you keep saying."

"I'm a Spectre. I can do it."

"Shepard, don't you think you're - "

"No! Garrus, she set me up. We could've all gotten killed, and for what? To act as her personal hit-men so she didn't have to suffer the indignity of hiring a real assassin? I am going to kill her."

The rest of the crew had made themselves scarce a long time ago. It hadn't taken long for each of them, regardless of species, to recognize the unmistakable signs that Shepard's rage was not going to be short-lived. Garrus had remained as she stormed around the mess, though he was beginning to regret it. He wasn't used to this role-reversal, in which he was the one to talk Shepard around to seeing the sense of a less violent path.

The circular discussion continued a few more orbits around his patience before it eventually, mercifully began to lose momentum. After a few more "I'm going to kill her"s, Shepard allowed herself to be persuaded to go to her cabin, so that if she was going to keep fuming, at least the crew could get back to their lives.

There was something wrong with this whole mission, and it wasn't just that she'd been used. It wasn't even that she'd diverted precious time to airing the dirty laundry of a really messed up family. It was that even now, Shepard was certain that if she could go back in time, knowing everything she now knew, she would still meet with Nassana and go on this wild goose chase. The infuriating part of it all was that she didn't know why.

She didn't normally have fatalistic tendencies, so why did it feel like something was telling her that whether she liked it or not, Nassana Dantius was one of the most important people in her life? She knew, at the core of her being, that despite her declarations otherwise, she was going to let that spoiled, self-important asari live, and _something_ was telling her that their lives had been linked for a reason.

"Joker, I want to know when we're 10 minutes from docking at the Citadel."

* * *

"Your sister's dead! I killed her myself! If you don't want to end up like her, start talking!"

The human woman's voice rang out across the embassy lounge. She'd gotten the attention of every patron present, including the assassin. While everyone else was straining for gossip or a sign that things were about to get messy, he just needed to make sure the human wasn't going to get in the way. The asari she was threatening was connected to his target - a slaver who had been straying too far into the territory of those who could afford his services - and he hoped to firm up his plans based on intelligence she would never be aware she'd left vulnerable to those who knew how to extract it.

As he watched, the human eventually became calmer, adopting a softer tone that was swallowed by the resuming conversations of those who had become bored with the situation. While everyone else was mollified by the return to normalcy, he became nervous, straining to pick out the human's words. Her back was to him, so there was no hope of even reading her lips or taking context clues from gestures. Her companions, a quarian and a turian, flanked her and faced the room, as if daring anyone to interfere. Unfortunately, neither of their faces were likely to present anything he could interpret.

Who was that human, and what was her business with the asari? She was conspicuously clad in Alliance-issue armor. Was she there in some official capacity? No. The human military might be sloppy and heavy-handed, but as far as he knew, they didn't openly threaten to murder alien civilians in public. He needed to end this senseless preoccupation before it became a true distraction. In the end, she wouldn't matter. Even in layers of armor, humans were delicate things. One sharp twist of her head and any menace she presented would be gone.

That thought should have pacified his mind, but he was shocked to discover that it repulsed him. He needed to leave. The asari could wait; it seemed as if she spent most of her time in that chair. Just as no one had noticed his entrance, no one was aware that he had gone. Stealth was his greatest asset at the moment. He boarded the first automated rapid transit and growled an order for it to deliver him to his lodging, grateful for the solitude. Even as he knew that he was nearing the end of his ability to continue without sleep, he was aware that no oblivion would come when he closed his eyes. Every time he did so, he was faced with an image of his own hands, reaching for a soft, pink face, desperate to make it turn to him and reveal its features.


	4. A Guilty Thing Surprised

Despite his certainty of impending insomnia, the assassin did indeed sleep, and he slept far longer than was normal for him, even during exhausting conditions. It took him some time to shake off the fog, hampered in this effort by the memory of dreams that clung fast to his waking mind.

_Gunfire fills my ears. Surrounded. There are too many. Some, I will send to the sea, but my body accepts its own death as inevitable. Heavy boots pound the floor from behind. A pink face blurred behind its visor. Red streaks glisten under biotic fire. A dying asari chokes on the floor. Her final exhalation, a word - "siha."_

It was rare that he found himself doing the will of the goddess Arashu, at least not directly. While it was true that those he hunted tended to prey themselves on the weak and defenseless, he was hardly a vigilante. It seemed, however, that he was to fight alongside one of Her warrior-angels. If She had chosen to impart this knowledge to him in a dream, he would not dismiss it. Now he knew why the specter of the future had been dogging his steps - his commission was not from the hanar who had called in an old allegiance, but from the One who spared no effort in protecting her chosen.

With newfound eagerness to continue his mission, he dressed quickly and proceeded to the embassy lounge. He would wait there for the asari to arrive, and learn what he needed to from her. He spared a moment for annoyance at his hanar employer for not including her name among the information given to him. With a name, he could have tracked her down immediately. Had he been less agitated and paid more attention at the time he first reviewed the dossier, he would have questioned this. As it was, he was forced to work only with a holophoto and the knowledge that she spent her days in the lounge. He hoped that the information she would provide about his target would be more useful.

After a little more than an hour of waiting, he caught sight of the asari as she sauntered through the door and toward her usual table. He rose, intending to take up a closer, if somewhat more exposed position to drop the device that would track her movements and transmit an audio feed to the software installed on his omni-tool. He stopped himself short, however, as she was approached by a human waiter the instant she slid into her seat.

"Good morning, Ms. Dantius," the human greeted her, "Your usual?"

Dantius. His target was an asari named Dantius, but that was not the Dantius in the holo labeled as the target. Perhaps it was a common name among asari. He would proceed as planned, but with more caution.

The waiter left, but almost immediately upon his departure, the asari was hailed by another. This time, it was a member of her own species who called to her.

"Nassana!" cried the newcomer, waving a hand high as she hurried to cross the lounge. She took up residence in the chair opposite Ms. Dantius and seized the sky-blue hands in her own. "I just heard about Dahlia! Oh, your poor sister! It's so awful!

The second asari continued to shudder and exclaim about mercenaries and ransom, but the assassin ignored her to contemplate what she had already said. Dantius. Dahlia. Sister.

_Human female in Alliance armor. Gasps and clatter of utensils dropped in surprise. "Your sister's dead! I killed her myself!"_

Dahlia Dantius. Dead Asari. Siha. Time to get some answers.

* * *

"Get us to Feros, Joker," Shepard called as she stepped through the airlock.

"Commander, I've got Admiral Hackett on the comm for you and you probably want to hear this first. Patching him through-"

"No," she said, without breaking stride, "Take a message or tell him to send it to my extranet address and I'll deal with whatever he wants later. We're going to Feros. No more side missions. No distress calls, no rogue VIs, no Cerberus. Not until we've made some progress on our actual mission."

"Yes, ma'am!"

She needed a drink, and a shower, and sleep. _Oh well. Two out of three will have to do. _Instead of heading for her cabin and a shower, she made a beeline for the medical bay. Dr. Chakwas always had a bottle of something stashed away and had long since become immune to armor-funk. Kaidan called out to her with a wave as she approached that end of the deck, but she ignored him and blew through the door to her destination. Normally, she'd welcome a little flirt session at the end of an annoying day, but she had no patience left for dealing with him. She liked him, probably, but sometimes, it was just too much work to get through a conversation with the man. She had to drag answers out of him, and then, when she finally thought they were getting somewhere, he'd trail off and say he'd already taken up too much of her time.

Unfortunately, the doctor was busy with Liara, trying to come up with a way to help the asari cope better with the side-effects of helping Shepard sift through the jumbled memories dropped in her head by the Prothean beacon. Liara was only trying to help, but Shepard's need to be away from anyone blue, even a friend, outweighed her need for an intoxicant.

"Something you need, Commander?" The doctor asked, over her shoulder.

"No. Nothing urgent. I should go."

_I guess it'll be one out of three,__then.__If a damned pipe bursts, I'm going to have to rethink this whole saving the galaxy thing._

* * *

**A/N:**_ I apologize for the delay in posting the next chapter. A family situation has required much of my attention. I have been making notes when I can and will organize them into a proper narrative soon. Rest assured that I will see this through. I have drafts of a few chapters that will come later already finished, so once I get the next chronological ones finalized, updates will come quickly. Thanks for reading! In the meantime, I thought you might like a listen to some of the music that inspires me as I work on this particular story. If you visit Grooveshark, add /playlist/Haunted+By+Waters/87246765 to the URL to find a playlist in no particular order. When this story is complete, I'll arrange the tracks so they line up with story events. Keelah se'lai.  
_


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